Rip-off Britain: 10 astonishingly bad deals

Every-day rip offs are part of the British landscape. You might say they're as much a part of life as queueing in drizzle, or drinking (overpriced) tea while waiting for a delayed train.

But while we've become used to the dull roar of general disappointment about prices, there are some rip-offs that are so outlandish that they still have the power to surprise. AOL has identified 10 of the most irritating.

1.Rail fares

In theory, trains are the transport of the future: they're green, they avoid congestion on the roads, and they take you right to the heart of the city. In practice, they are delayed, overcrowded, and unbelievably overpriced.

Recent inflation figures mean that in 2015, prices will be hiked yet again, by 3.5%. That's more than twice the rate of inflation and almost six times the speed of wage increases.

We're charged significantly more than elsewhere in Europe. A Passenger Focus study in 2009 revealed that journeys of all kinds cost much more in the UK than elsewhere. It's hardly surprising that the rail watchdog found that just 31% of people though their train fare was good value.

How to beat the rail fare hikes

2. Booking fees

Research by Which? found that compulsory booking fees added an average of 18% to the cost of tickets to all sorts of events - from concerts to the cinema and the theatre. Unsurprisingly they also found that 80% of people feel these sorts of charges are a rip off.

These come under all sorts of ridiculous titles such as fulfilment fees, transaction fees and service charges.

In some cases you are charged delivery fees - even if you pick the tickets up from the venue, in other cases you are charged for printing them at home. More often than not, they are listed as fees with absolutely no explanation as to how a company can possibly justify charging up to £9.50 to let you book a ticket.

Nowadays ticket companies are required to display all the charges upfront, but where there's no alternative way to buy the ticket without paying the charges, this is hardly a useful development.

3. Airline fees

Just those two words are enough to raise most people's blood pressure. The arrival of the budget airlines meant a breakthrough in cheaper air fares, but the price we pay is the array of fees we are expected to stump up for on a flight. Even more irritatingly, in the face of competition from these flights, traditional airlines are starting to copy the model, and charge separately for things like baggage.

The charges can be outlandish. Take Ryanair, for example: let's assume you bought a return flight to Paris for £50. You might be feeling pleased with your deal initially. However, you'll also need to add in £10 to be able to choose a seat both ways or £20 for a premium seat, you might want priority boarding for both flights for £4.

If you buy your ticket at the airport or over the phone there's then a booking fee of £20. If you want to take bags it's anything up to £90 per bag for the return trip - or £150 if you buy at the airport or through the call centre (in high season).

If you forget to check in online before you travel, it's another £70 each way, and if you check in but forget your boarding card that's £15 each way. It means that in addition to your £50, you can spend £384 in fees, and that's even before the 2% credit card charge. Suddenly that return flight is costing you more than £400.

The airlines argue that if you follow all the rules, pay by debit card, and don't take a bag or choose a seat, you can fly without the extra fees.

But for those who end up stuck with charges, it's their sheer scale that rankles. How can it possibly cost £15 to print you a new boarding card? How can checking you in cost the airline £70?

The simple answer is that it can't: it's just a rip off.

Earn Airmiles when you spend with this Virgin credit card

4. Tenant fees

Some nine million people in the UK rent property, and according to Shelter, one in four of them have been charged an unfair up-front fee. This is particularly painful because at the start of the tenancy they need to pay the first months' rent and the security deposit (which is often the equivalent of another month's rent), so the fact they have to pay spurious fees on top of this is unacceptable.

On average these fees come to around £350. However, in one in seven firms they top £500. They are ostensibly to cover things like credit checks, administration and changing a name on a tenancy agreement, but clearly the charges easily outweigh the cost to the firms.

There has been political pressure to crack down on these fees. However, in May MPs decided not to amend the Consumer Rights Bill to force agents to scrap the charges. So there's no end in sight for these rip off fees.

Landlords hit by 'secret' agent fees

5. Replica shirts

David Cameron was moved to weigh in on the subject of overpriced replica shirts when England's official World Cup shirt was priced at an astonishing £90. He made an impassioned appeal to the Football Association and Nike - who chose to do absolutely nothing about it.

So it comes as absolutely no surprise to see a new England rugby replica kit has just been launched with an eye-watering £91 price tag. The cost itself is bad enough, even before you consider the timing of it: The shirt is only going to be used in about 12 matches - for the Autumn internationals and the Six Nations tournament. Then next July they'll put out another one in time for the Rugby World Cup.

The RFU argues that profits are ploughed back into the game, but that's not going to come as much consolation to the parents of die-hard fans, who are going to come under huge pressure to buy this shirt - only to have to stump up for another one in 10 months' time.

6. Overdraft charges

The banks really know how to kick us when we're down. Just when we're running short of cash, and dip into the red on our current account, they strike - and hit us hard with astronomical overdraft fees. If we don't manage to desperately scrabble back into the black quickly, they'll hit us again, and again - until we've racked up a fortune in charges when we can least afford it. It's no wonder we feel ripped off.

Some 14 million people in the UK use an overdraft facility - and over a third of people with a bank account regularly rely on it to make ends meet. As a result, the banks are making serious money from our desperation - around £4.1 billion a year.

Figures from Moneyfacts show that charges on authorised overdrafts have risen to an average of almost 14%. In some cases they are truly alarming. Barclays, for example will let you go £150 into the red without charge, then it will charge 75p a day for overdrafts up to £1,000, £1.50 for those borrowing up to £2,000 and £3 a day for those borrowing more. This means someone who borrows £300 for three days each month will pay £27 a year - that's an interest rate of more than 91%.

The banks argue that these flat charges are transparent. However, it's hard to get excited about how transparent a bank is being when you're facing more than 90% interest on your overdraft.

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7. Gas and electricitycosts

Energy companies are fast-becoming the most hated firms in the UK. According to Which? just one in five people trust their energy company to charge them a fair price. This is hardly surprising, as we have seen our energy bills soar 21% in three years - faster than most of the countries in the developed world - and four times faster than wages.

We have been told that this is because of rises in the worldwide cost of energy, but this only accounts for 60% of the rises. Meanwhile, around 10% is made up of 'green' measures designed to reduce consumption and fund other forms of energy. The rest stands accused of being a rip off.

This argument is likely to intensify as energy companies raise prices again in the next few weeks. This is entirely attributable to the energy companies themselves, who saw profits fall as we used less energy during the mild autumn and people switched away from the large overpriced firms.

And when we're paying over-the-odds for an essential lifeline, in order to line the pockets of the companies involved - it's hard to argue that this is anything other than a rip off.

8. Motorway Service Station prices

We all understand why motorway service stations can get away with charging a bit more for food and drink: they have a monopoly in the area and they know few people are going to be bothered driving miles off the motorway in search of an alternative.

We can all forgive a bit of a mark-up, as they're running a 24-hour business, and face the additional costs this entails. However, it's the scale of the overcharging that bothers us.

A Which? study found that two of the most overpriced items were a banana and a bottle of water - which cost six times as much in the service station as they do in the supermarket. It's no wonder that according to WhatCar, two third of people feel ripped off at a service station.

9. Estate agent fees

Estate agents will usually charge a fee based on a percentage of what the property is sold for. Depending on how hard you negotiate with them, they'll charge between 1% and 2.5%.

A study by the HomeOwners Alliance found that some agents were adding a host of other charges too, including registration fees, marketing fees and non-refundable deposits of £500 - which were payable even if the owner withdrew the property from sale.

Even without the extra charges, the commission is outlandish. If you take a typical property and a typical sale, the agent might spend five hours valuing the property, and putting together the marketing details. According to Hometrack, the average property sells in 12 viewings - which might take another six hours. Add in two more hours of paperwork and negotiation, and you have 13 hours.

Assuming you sold the average UK home for £272,000 at 2.5%, that would net the agent £6,800. That's almost £525 an hour. And can anyone honestly say their agent was worth every penny?

10. Dieselcosts

Drivers are facing a peculiar new trend in fuel prices. While the cost of petrol is around the European average, we pay one of the highest prices for diesel in Europe. A recent survey by the Post Office found that we pay up to 43p a litre more than elsewhere.

The AA says we are paying on average 3.5p per litre more than we would if garages were taking their usual margin, which indicate that garages have chosen to make a higher margin than usual on diesel sales. The AA has said this is 'potentially profiteering'. It has to be a blow for the many millions of drivers who were convinced to switch to diesel in order to save cash.

But what do you think? Are these the most annoying rip offs in your life, or is there another form of overcharging that gets your goat? Let us know in the comments section below.

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